Help! My Ancestors Were Related to Each Other!

[@RobtHobbs]

That was excellent. I have some "interesting" DNA matches and this video was extremely enlightening.

[@YourDNAGuide]

I'm so glad to hear that!

[@sgjoni]

Well explained. I’ve been hooked on genetic genealogy for almost 6 years now and boy did I have to learn this the hard way 😂 … I’m Icelandic so all three play a big part 🤪 The best tool I have found so far is best matches, a well built out WikiTree mapping all the known pedigree collapses and DNApainter to map where I’ve inherited each segment from… That has been the only way to try and tease these multiple connections apart. It is generally no problem up to about 5 generations, but after that it just all merges as most of my 3rd great grandparents were 4th to 6th cousins of each other… usually multiple times 😂 … I’m also placing hope on Y-DNA and mtDNA to help sort through some of that 😊

[@alexandradixon3775]

Great explanation of multiple relationships, pedigree collapse, and endogamy. Thanks so much. I also really appreciate the tip about looking for the longest shared segment.

[@TMacYYC]

Thanks Diahan, that was the clearest explanation of multiple relationship, pedigree collapse and endogamy I have seen.

[@JohnRandomness105]

Your example of multiple relationships was double first cousins. I was also reminded of a line from Tom Lehrer's song, "Oedipus Rex": "His daughter was his sister and his son was his brother." (I can't remember whether the line was singular or plural.) Every person has related ancestors. There just aren't enough humans for anyone to have unrelated ancestors. Furthermore, if two persons are unrelated, one is an alien without DNA.

[@robarsenault1025]

Acadian living on an island have all 3 my dna matches are a mess

[@barbarashelmire8327]

Yep. I am related to myself numerous ways…

[@tafinzer]

Very helpful, thank you. The Ashkenazi Jewish population has this issue.

[@robynhorner8960]

Brilliant just what I needed to know ....

[@runemasterhariwulfaz5267]

I think I sometimes run into this with some of my matches. A big chunk of my ancestry is from a specific area in rural Lithuania, which unfortunately was not freed from serfdom until the 1860s, essentially keeping the bulk of people incredibly landlocked. Unfortunately I do think endogamy has a part to play in some people I match with

[@mattpotter8725]

Thanks for this Diahan, this is very interesting. I would expect most people will have some multiple relationship or pedigree collapse in their tree from back in the day when people lived more locally and families were a bit more close knit in their communities and there was only a certain number of families in an area, especially more rural areas, even if it is only brothers or sisters of direct ancestors having children, then grandchildren who then marry, even unwittingly, others from different branches of your tree. I only mention this as I have all defined groups that DNA matches fall into, but occasionally the odd person matches one person from another group whilst the other 10 are all within that one group. I recently got my DNA test results back and was surprised to find that for some of the matches I share with my grandpa I have more DNA in common with them than he does (and he was originally from Ireland and emigrated to England during the war). I knew I had a 2nd great grandfather who was also from Ireland born in the mid 1800s, but from a completely different province of Ireland and didn't expect this to happen this much, if at all. It isn't much, in most cases 1 or 2cM, on a 15cM match, but a few are as much as 10 or 15cM on say a 25cM match. Now my suspicion is that descendants of a common ancestor from both sides of my tree married and had children but finding a 25cM match is hard enough if it comes from one branch, but doing so in this case will be like looking for 2 separate matches rather than one, to find the two branches and where they intersect. It is intriguing though. It's amazing what DNA results throw up!!!

[@YourDNAGuide]

Very interesting, Matt!

[@angelavonhalle5144]

I've mostly stuck to building a tree. I descend from lines of cousins marrying cousins, and their descendents marrying third cousins, and so on. Resulting in "knots", not branches on the tress. If you stick to Europe, where staying geographically put, sometimes marrying out of the region, but still a social region, this seems to happen a lot. Then you have the pandemics (mostly the plague, which decimated the european population significantly more than once. So what do you end up with, is that survivors descend from the same pool of the population. I have come to the (maybe wrong??) conclusion that, for Europe this is almost the norm. This is starting from family research to a point, but then continuing using internet trees. (mainly Portugal, Spain, France and Holland, even finding a Persian connection (family research).

[@ThisIsMyYoutubeName1]

I’m assuming I fall into endogamy. My largest amount of ancestors were Acadian, but a couple of lines came from Quebec and maybe 5 were French. I’ve found so many married their first cousins when they arrived in Louisiana I have 170,000 matches on Ancestry and 17,000 on MyHeritage. I have a set of brothers who are first cousins and both took DNA with Ancestry. I’ve been grouping them into 4, but one is flagged as “paternal” when I know they’re my moms brothers children. One is 200cM higher than the other. When someone I can’t figure out and they don’t have a tree, shared matches does not help.

[@YourDNAGuide]

You may want to consider taking our endogamy course. www.yourdnaguide.com/endogamy

[@kevincassidy7385]

Interesting. I have an 1880 marriage record that is an outlier for the mother of groom. The DNA at 23me shows JK matching me at 30/2, my 1C @ 22/2 and our 1C1Rs at 102/1 and 36/4. Our 1C1rs are 1C to each other. What, if anything, is a single segment at 102cM revealing? I project that JK and 102/1 are 4C at the closest. Please advise.(Took these notes b4 23me restricted data)

[@kevincassidy7385]

The wedding rec showed groom parents as Dominick Benson and Mary Farrell. My 2x great grandparents were Dominick Benson and Mary FAHY. JK matches descendants of the Fahy line where other Bensons(descendants of Dominick's brother George) do not. The Benson bride in 1880 has a brother and nephews named Farrell as given names. I think it's a clerical error but have to prove that another Dominick Benson who could have married a Mary Farrell did not exist. There are no other indications that this hypothetical couple existed. No vital record indicated they existed but this 1880 marriage rec. Mary Fahy Benson had 7 children(1850-1864) and numerous recs to show this(1853-1933). That doesn't eliminate possibility of Mary Farrell Benson existing. 102/1 is a KNOWN great-great-great-grandson of Mary Fahy Benson. JK is a known great-great-great grandson of Mary Farrelll(?)Benson. At a match of 102/1, are they 4C or 5C or something else, please? 36/4 is a known 1C to 102/1. Does this clarify or muddy the issue? They are sons of sisters and their mothers are the oldest and youngest of 8 kids. At 23 and Me their mitochondrial group matches not surprisingly. and JK's Y-chromosome is the same group as a Benson descended from Dominick's brother George Benson. JK's great-grandfather was adopted after his parents died but retained Benson as a middle name and used it only as a middle name for a son. (Great-grandad used his birth parents' names on both his marriages records in 1910 & 1922) JK did not know of the name change which happened 1900.

[@YourDNAGuide]

Sounds like you need a coaching session. You can learn more about them and book one here. www.yourdnaguide.com/coach

[@cooperjdcox49]

Why has MyHeritage stopped loading since Roots Tech?

[@YourDNAGuide]

It is loading ok for me...?

[@helenhunter4540]

IS endogamy "messy and unpredictable"? Or just unfamiliar? For people within it, it's probably normal. I'll have to listen to this again because I don't get "pedigree collapse" and I call my relatives whose mothers were sisters who married brothers -- double cousins, not people with "multiple relationships". I don't worry about how many cMs in a relationship. I mean: why?

[@YourDNAGuide]

Hi Helen. I am specifically talking about how it might be difficult to use traditional DNA research techniques to find their ancestors when they come from an endogamous population. Your double cousins are certainly one kind of multiple relationship. And you only need to count cMs if you are trying to figure out how you are related to someone else. If you aren't working on a specific research goal, then no need to count cMs!

[@suebrown1606]

Can I sent a message private to you

[@YourDNAGuide]

You can send your question to [e-mail].